Dashiell Hammett's novel, The Maltese Falcon, is a hard-boiled detective story; a subset of the mystery genre. Before the emergence of this subgenre, detective novels were mainly dominated by unrealistic cases and detectives like Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. As Malmgren puts it: "The murders in these stories are implausibly motivated, the plots completely contrived, and the characters pathetically two-dimensional, cardboard puppets and lovers, papier-mâché villains, and detectives of exquisite, impossible kindness." . ” (Malmgren, 371) On the other hand, Hammett tried to write realistic detective fiction – the “hard” kind. In The Maltese Falcon, Hammett uses language, symbolism, and characterization to bring the story closer to reality. The Maltese Falcon is written in a casual tone filled with colloquial expressions in a laconic style cut from an objective point of view. In the novel, Hammett used a lot of slang specific to a social group: the criminals of the underworld, as well as the police and detectives who dealt with them. For example, when Spade was accused by the police of killing his partner, Miles Archer, he said: You shouldn't try to pin more than one murder on me at a time. Your initial idea that I overthrew Thursby [a character murdered near the beginning of the novel] because he killed Miles collapses if you also blame me for killing Miles […] But suppose I did actually, you could have fooled me. em both. (Hammett, 451) Words such as pin (accused), knock off (kill), and blip (kill) are widely known slang terms of the time, so incorporating them into speeches makes the characters appear more raw and realistic . Hammett uses a concise, laconic style that accelerates action, controls emotions and limits clear access...... middle of paper ...... at one of the largest professional detective agencies in the United States United, he is able to bring an aura of realism with a bit of pessimism to his stories. For The Maltese Falcon, such realism is achieved by using the language of this social group in a style that brings a sense of almost real action to the reader; character symbolism in relation to real events; and characterize characters with real human qualities. As a result, some say: "Dashiell Hammett is the person who saved the [mystery] genre by bringing it back to the real world" (Malmgren, 371) Works Cited: Abrahams, Pual P. "Re-reading the Maltese Falcon" Journal pf American Culture (Bowling Green) 18.1 (1995): 97Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Vintage Books, 1930Malmgren, Carl D. “The Crime of the Sign: The Detective Fiction of Dashiell Hammett” Twentieth-Century Literature. 45.3 (1990): 371